Increase in surgical workforce vital: Doctor

AN increase in the health sector workforce is vital to improve efforts to tackle the county’s health challenges, a doctor says. Chief surgeon Dr Osborne Liko, in a presentation at the medical symposium in Port Moresby, pointed out that surgical workforce in the country was one that really needed to be increased. Liko recalled the challenges faced in PNG over the past years and said one of the important areas the health sector has to look into was improvements in the workforce, especially in the surgical arena so people who went under the knife would come out safe. “So far there is already a shortage in skilled health workers to support surgery and do other health-related work to save lives and to improve the lives of the sick population in the country.” He said the achievements in terms of skilled manpower in the health sector were far behind the required standard of the World Health Organisation. “The required standard ratio is 20 doctors is to 0.2million (200, 000) but in PNG we only have few medical officers where 20 doctors can be rationed to 0.3-0.4 million,” said Dr Osborne.